So on Saturday the day finally came, Fun Frocks and Fundraising #2!! All the preparation and organisation was finally finished and everything was ready to kick off. We arrived early doors at The Nevis Centre in Fort William along with a team from Lochaber Hope ready to get all last minute details sorted and get everything on it’s way. Everything in the morning was running smoothly and I would like to thank everyone who was on hand to make this happen – you’s were great!!

Doors opened for the event at 12pm and we had a queue of people waiting at the door to get in early and browse some of the gorgeous dresses that we had on offer. Our guests then had the chance to sip champagne, eat a couple of canapés and have a wander round the hall to see what was on offer.

We kicked the show off around 1.30pm with a bang! There has been a great new trend recently with wedding dances – more and more couples are divulging in creative choreography and daring dance moves in order to entertain their wedding guests. Taking to the stage we had Lynne, Segun, Ruben, Mia, Ella, Laird, Eilidh, Michelle, Allie, Cileas and Robbie who performed the dance that Lynne and Segun had recently performed at their wedding. Our founding director Anne also couldn’t resist a wee boogie down the runway so we had a last minute dancer also join in on stage! They danced down our catwalk to Chris Brown – Forever and they really got the crowd going and ready for our catwalk show to start.

The task of finding models for the catwalk had not been a hard task for me when organising this event. I decided to bombard my friends and rope them in to help out for the day – it’s for a good cause of course! Allie Wright from Lochaber Hope also took to the runway as did our very own Morag. We also invited a special guest along to model – Mo from a local blog called ‘A Taste of Lochaber’. Mo takes up challenges from local people who may offer her a chance to go abseiling or deep sea diving in order for her to face her fears and put her out of her comfort zone and to showcase what Lochaber has to offer. Our challenge was slightly different but still showing what is going on in the local area. She did great and the blog post was lovely. You can read it here. Kim MacMillan from Mardi Gras music kindly offered to come along and be the MC for the fashion show. She did a great job!

Following the catwalk it was time for the auction! We had local auctioneer Isabel Campbell come along for the day and she was great! She really got the crowd going and we even had a few of the dresses in a highly charged auction battle between members of the audience that were desperate to get their hands on the same dress! Many of our guests managed to get a great bargain and a few even managed to get their hands on the bridal gowns we had to offer. One even went for the knock down price of just £50!

All in all the day was a great success! Everyone involved had a great day and we managed to raise a large sum of money for Lochaber Hope who is currently fundraising for new premises in Fort William. Alyson Smith coordinator said, “We are extremely grateful to Fuze, events like this raise awareness of the real need for our service in the community, life doesn’t go according to plan and we all face difficult times, our plans include being able to continue a mentoring and counselling provision which has proved to be a great benefit to Lochaber High School pupils and we want to encourage other schools to access this service. The final total of money raised is just under £1500 and I’m sure this will be a great help to them and the local people of Lochaber.

I would like to thank all the exhibitors for coming along! There were some great buys on the tables throughout the day. I would also like to thank Alan from Caledonian Ceilidh Disco for donating his services on the day and supplying us with music. He was very professional and contributed so much to the day, providing a great backdrop of music for the catwalk. We couldn’t have done it without a bit of music! And of course a massive thanks to the Nevis Centre for letting us hire the hall and a knockdown price – I think poor Kenny nearly died when we told him the price we had been quoted by the old manager. Both Kenny and Danny were great on the day and anything we were needed they were on had to help! The Nevis Centre is a fantastic venue to host local events and I would highly recommend it!

If you’d like to read our other blogs on the run up to the Fun Frocks & Fundraising Event here they are:

Pre Loved Wedding Dress
The Perfect Dress
Bridal Wedding Accessories
Mother of the Bride
Fort William Blackening Parade
Lochaber Hope

If you’d like more information on the events that Fuze get involved with then get in touch today!